Pierluigi Marchetti ([email protected])
Mon, 9 Nov 1998 17:04:32 +0100
The title is "U2: Drums of peace"; (from Dublin) Edge phoned Paolo
Zaccagnini in
Rome.
You can find the original text (in Italian) at:
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19981109/01_NAZIONALE/SPETTACOLI/EDGE.htm
And you can see the newspaper cover (with U2 photo) at:
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19981109/19981109.htm
This is my translation (sorry for the mistakes:-)
-----------------------------
E: We are recording our new album; that's why I couldn't phone yesterday,
sorry. I'm calling from the studio, not Windmill Lane, a smaller one...
Z: When the new album could be ready?
E: We don't know; it'll be ready when we are satisfied by new tracks, only
then. We learned the lesson with last album, we won't tell anything to the
record label till it's ready, because they would hasten us.
Z: What about the producer?
E: Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. They're great. Together we are a good team.
Z: What about the Best Of?
E: We wanted to make listen to a story, our story. We sat at a table and
chose; there was who wanted Gloria, who 11 O' Clock Tick Tock, or Bullet The
Blue Sky, Running To Stand Still, or Sunday Bloody Sunday with his old
traditional violin. Finally we all agreed. The idea of making a Best came
after the tour. The songs I like most are Walk To The Water and Luminous
Times. And also Love Comes Tumbling.
Z: What about bad reviews of Popmart?
E: They came mostly from England newspapers, and we answered at Wembley
stadium... Las Vegas' failure was our fault, no excuses, we didn't rehearse
as we need. We chose Las Vegas because of the position, you can't debut in a
big city. A rock concert is not like a movie where you can even make
corrections after festivals, before it is released. Anyway then everything
went alright: this is rock n' roll. And we don't complain...
Z: Fame, money...: has all this changed you in some way?
E: Not much, because we kept our feet on the ground, and we went on looking
inside us. Dublin and Dubliners were useful, it is all very realistic,
luckily nobody reveres you, living as a rockstar isn't easy, it's not like
in the U.S.A., because here you can go and buy milk, newspaper, cigarettes.
Z: How will the new album be? Celtic tradition maybe or again technology?
E: At the moment I can say we are four people spending 10, 12 hours in a
room telling each other ideas, notes, memories. Till now no technology, as
for Pop, where (ironic, but true) all was played by us, apart from the very
first days, when we used a lot of loops, sequencers and samples, because
Larry got problems with his hands. Now we want to go back only to the four
of us, to our personalities. And maybe, but it is soon to say it, to more
traditional sounds.
Z: After all this time what are you talking of and doing in the recording
room?
E: We enjoy ourself and joke as the first day; if it wouldn't be this way,
we wouldn stop . We are proud for what we made till now, and now we want to
make a different record, we want to go on, knowing how to look back, and to
get something from our roots.
Z: You played in Belfast for Nobels Hume and Trimble; next record will be
the first in a time of peace...
E: We met Hume as he knew about the Nobel, he thanked us for what we did,
though we only played music. The Nobel Prize was very important and
emotional for every Irish. All that tragedy really influenced us, deeply,
think of Sunday Bloody Sunday, and peace, I have no doubt, will do the same.
Bono ha written a lot and just on the peace. Everyone in Irland really hopes
that everything will be alright up there. Maybe the bodhran, the traditional
war drum, will be for sounds of peace.
Z: What abou the cinema?
E: Wim Wenders will shot The Million Dollar Hotel and so we'll do something
for its soundtrack. We didn't record much for the cinema... The whole
Passengers album got to be a real soundtrack, but we didn't find the
subject...
Z: There's a photo in the Best Of booklet...What remaines about the
Dandelion Market years?
E: We have the same spirit, the sense of humor, and self irony, we still
want to be together and confront, even to quarrel, but to be anyway and
always friends. If it wasn't this way when we started, U2 would never exist,
we couldn't do anything. And I don't think any of us could play music withou
a band like us. It was punk era, but we were different, because when in
London most thought to the hairs or dresses of musicians, not many, apart
from the poet John Cooper Clark or the Clash, talked about social problems
and we did. We were only simple boys who wrote and sang hard political
lyrics that people liked and we could come out.
Z: Do you remember what was the first song you have ever written?
E: Yes. The title was Child Of The Tall Tree. But in those years we supplied
the lack or original songs with the energy, the strenght, the will to have
success... We only need a melody we considered good enough... then Bono
pretended to sing and we played and people stay and listen to us.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Nov 09 1998 - 08:07:30 PST